She groaned and arched her back, thrusting her breast harder into his hand. She was moaning now, her breathing hard and laboured, her body taut and straining as she approached her climax. He tugged gently on her nipple, tumbling her over the edge, and slid his fingers into her as she pulsed around him.
‘Marcus!’ she cried. ‘Marcus,’ she said again and although he was aching with unspent desire his heart swelled to hear his name upon her lips as she found her pleasure.
He held her and she lay in his arms. He had thought that when the two people he loved best in the world had betrayed him he would never feel happiness again. But he could feel the beat of Ellen’s heart and the little aftershocks of pleasure that pulsed through her body, and he knew that he had been wrong. His father had been right after all, even if he had gone about it in all the wrong way. Ellen was the woman for him and she had been all along. In those early days he prided himself that despite all that his father and Amanda had done to him, he had not shirked his duty. But he had deluded himself. He had given neither Ellen nor his marriage a fair chance. He had closed his mind and his eyes to her, hooded by the burden of duty, and the need to save his family. He felt like he had been in a dark and shadowed place, unable to see the jewel that had fallen into his hands. But her return had brought light and freed him from the darkness. He was being given a second chance. And he meant to grasp it with both hands.
Ellen did not want to attend the Prince of Wales afternoon tea gathering any more than Marcus, but they could hardly refuse and, besides, she was afraid of what would happen between them if they stayed in the house together. So she put on her most confident air and pretended that she wanted to go. It was hard to keep the smile curved upon her mouth and swap inconsequential chat with the darlings of the Ton when her mind was weighted down with such worry and confusion and all she wanted was to be alone and think. Every time she glanced up it was to find Marcus’s eyes upon her, and even across the length of the yellow drawing room in Carlton House, even in the presence of Prinny himself, she could feel the furor of this storm of passion sparking between them, firing a heat between her thighs and making her blush to remember what had happened in the breakfast room that morning. Somehow she got through the afternoon. The end had come eventually and with it the fear of what was to follow when she and Marcus were finally alone once more in the town house.
And now she perched upon the edge of her bed, sitting in a sunbeam, waiting for her maid to come and help her change for dinner. Part of her—the scared, wounded part—was telling her to stick to her plan and walk away, to leave him wanting while she still could. Except that it all seemed so different now. What had been such a simple plan had nothing of simplicity. She had made him desire her. And in so doing she had reawakened her own desire for him…and more.
Everything felt complicated and confused. She had thought her feelings for him dead. But now she knew she had been wrong. Now she knew that in hurting him she hurt herself. And in denying him she denied all that was in her heart and body.
She thought of the sincerity in his eyes, and the tenderness of his touch. She thought of his kiss and the promise that it contained. She thought of how she had lost herself in the madness of passion that had flared between them in the breakfast room, wiping all thought of the plan from her mind. Had he freed himself from his breeches in that moment she would have sheathed him with her body and ridden him as Kitty had said a woman might ride a man. He must have known her willingness, yet Marcus had not eased himself upon her. He had put her needs before his own and shown her an ecstasy she had not known existed. As if he cared for her.
The man she had come back to find was not the same one she had left. He had changed. She could see it in the intensity of his eyes when he looked at her. She could feel it in the passion of his kiss. He was her husband and she wanted to be his wife in truth. She wanted to end this cruel pretence and seduce him in earnest. She wanted him to take her. She wanted to yield him her all.
Amanda White. The name seemed to whisper in the room around her. The woman he had loved. The woman he had wanted to marry. She knew very well why he had married her instead. And she felt that same old surge of bitterness and hurt. And she did not know what to do, for she realised the truth now. In hurting him she hurt herself because she still cared for him. Because she still loved him.
Chapter Five
The door to her bedchamber opened and closed again.
‘Meg…’ She glanced around and saw, not her maid, but Marcus leaning back against the wall beside the door. Her heart missed a bit, and her stomach somersaulted. His eyes were dark and purposeful, filled with an intent she could not mistake. She knew what he had come here for, even though it was still daylight. She got to her feet.
He made no move, just stood there, so seemingly relaxed yet she could sense the tension that emanated from him. Sleek and watchful, poised and ready. Like the great black panther caged in Prinny’s menagerie.
‘Not Meg,’ he said.
‘Marcus.’ She sounded breathless even to her own ears.
‘I have wanted us to talk for days, Ellen, but you seem very determined that we do not. So we will do this your way.’
She swallowed. Her throat felt suddenly dry. Her heart hammered in her chest.
He walked slowly towards her, his eyes dark as midnight. There were ploys she could use to evade this, all of them practised with Kitty. A thousand excuses that could have tripped from her tongue. Yet she uttered not one of them. His gaze held hers and she could not look away. What had been simmering and smouldering between them for days was very close to flashpoint. The very air seemed to pulse with the force of it. There was an unnatural calmness, a stillness that warned of the magnitude of what was about to be unleashed. It was in her power to stop it, and her mind was telling her to walk away, to cease this now. But her stubborn heart would not listen. It kept her standing there. Kept her gaze transfixed on his, while the potential of the storm built around them. What would happen between them was inevitable. It had been from the moment their eyes had met across the theatre auditorium. She realised that now, but she did not care. Everything else faded to nothing. There was only Marcus, and the hard, fast thud of her heartbeat and the hot, heady rush of her blood. There was only this moment in time. In the roar of the silence her breath was ragged. She caught it back and held it, waiting for what was coming.
He stopped before her, the sunlight so incongruous beside the dark sensual power emanating from him. ‘Ellen,’ he said.
It seemed to whisper through the air, sucking the air from the room, making the blood pound all the harder in her head. The strength of it dwarfed all else. This need to be together. This need to be as one. They were as nothing beside it. How had she ever thought she could resist?
‘Yes,’ she whispered as he pulled her into his arms. ‘Yes…’ He claimed her mouth with his, and the great storm of passion thundered and erupted between them.
Her mouth clung to his, as he kissed her with a passion beyond anything of her imagination, and she met him with everything that was in her heart. He kissed her and she wanted him never to stop. She did not notice that he had slid the pins from her hair and uncoiled the mass of curls, only that her hair was long and wanton, spreading over her shoulders, and that one of his hands was threaded through it, holding her while the other stroked such sweet caresses against her body that she longed to be rid of the layers of clothing that separated his hand from her skin. His kisses trailed from her mouth, hot and hard against her chin, along the line of her jaw to nuzzle her ear with steamy breath. His teeth scraped against the lobe, driving a shiver right through her, and making her nipples harden and ache with need. His lips slid to mouth the pulse that throbbed in her neck, then lower still across her décolletage to where the swell of her breasts rose from her dress. His breath seared against her skin, his tongue worked a magic all of its own. She clutched him closer, needing this all the more, wanting to wrench her bodice and corset low and free her breasts
in full to his mouth and all that it could do. And when he raised his head once more, coming up for air, his breath was as ragged as hers and his eyes were black with desire.
His mouth closed over hers, kissing her again as his fingers worked upon the buttons of her bodice before he eased it from her. Her petticoats followed to pool around her ankles. She saw his eyes range over the striped corset before coming back to hers, and she felt his arousal against her thigh.
‘Turn around,’ he said and his voice was husky and low and brimming with masculine power.
She presented him with her back and felt the scald of his breath against the nape of her neck, the tease of his lips against that sensitive skin making every nerve in her body tingle.
He unlaced her, and the trace of his fingers against her back made her catch her breath and her nipples bud all the harder. As the laces loosened the corset’s tight constriction gaped, freeing her breasts within her shift. Her nipples were so sensitive that the shift’s fine lawn felt coarse against them. The last lace was undone and the corset fell away into his hands as she turned to face him, wearing only the thin shift and her stockings and shoes. The corset still dangled from his hand. Without moving his gaze from hers he brought the garment to his mouth and touched a kiss to it before dropping it to the rug below.
She unfastened the neckline of her shift, letting it slide down over her body to pool around her ankles. Naked save for her shoes and stockings, she stood before him, conscious of the beat of her heart, conscious of the enormity of the love and passion in every single one of those beats. The sight of him, the smell of him, the touch of him, the heat that was in his eyes…all excited her beyond endurance. His gaze raked her body before rising to meet her eyes. And his gaze was fierce in its tenderness. He was her man, her husband…her lover. The knowledge made her ache all the more between her legs, deep inside, where only he could reach.
He shrugged off his tailcoat, discarded his waistcoat. She reached for him, her fingers catching at his cravat, pulling him closer and pressing an urgent kiss to his mouth while she slid the linen strip from around his neck and let it fall away to the floor. She struggled with unfastening his collar, but Marcus did it for her, stripping it away that she might kiss his Adam’s apple, before dipping her tongue in the hollow between his collarbones. Then she was pulling his shirttails out of his breeches, pushing them up and over his chest with impatience. He slipped the shirt over his head then discarded the rest of his clothes before standing naked before her.
He looked bigger than she remembered; tall and muscular and toned. A man that made her whole body tremble for the need of him. Her eyes traced the familiar scar on his shoulder, pale against the rest of his honey-gold skin. She followed the dusting of dark hair over his chest, to where it narrowed and trailed over the tight ribbed band of muscle in his abdomen down to his manhood, which bobbed erect and long and thick. He scooped her up, still wearing her shoes and stockings, and perched her on the edge of the bed.
She bent to unfasten the garter of her stocking but Marcus stopped her. He kissed her ankle, her shin, her knee. He parted her legs, kneeling between them as his mouth continued its journey, his breath trailing hot up her thigh as he kissed and mouthed his way steadily closer to her secret place.
‘Marcus,’ she whispered when she realised his intended destination. He mouthed the tender white skin at the top of her inner thighs, so close to her core that she could feel the warm stroke of his breath upon it, and eased her flat on the bed.
‘You cannot!’
He did not alter his position but his dark gaze scorched hers with its implacable promise and she knew with an absolute certainty that he would. And then, while he watched her eyes, his mouth closed over her.
‘Marcus!’ But he busied his tongue all the more, flicking against her bud as he kissed and sucked and licked her. And all the while his fingers strummed and played where she strained and ached for his entry.
She groaned her need, threading her fingers through the darkness of his hair, and pressed him all the harder to her. She splayed her legs wider, wanting him, feeling the urgency mounting fast within her. She cried out for him, needing him to fill her, and when he covered her body with his and slid into her it was everything she ever wanted.
He moved within her, one deep thrusting stroke at a time, and she met each thrust, her hands gripping to his firm muscled buttocks as if she would drive him even deeper. And with each thrust they travelled closer to the nirvana that was calling them. Travelling together, with urgency and need and desire urging them on, their eyes fixed on each other.
‘Marcus!’ she cried as her whole being exploded with love and light and joy and she felt him gasp and join her.
‘Ellen!’ He collapsed by her side, holding her to him as if he would never let her go. Their hearts beat as one. She did not know how many hours they lay in each other’s arms. Knew only that what had happened between them was a commitment stronger than any words, a shifting of the world as she knew it. He had loved her, and everything was right.
Eventually he kissed her hair. ‘I have to go to Westminster, Ellen. There is something that I have to do.’
She froze. Felt the stutter of her heart and the sudden plummet of her stomach. It could not be true. But, as she lay there in stunned disbelief, he climbed from the bed and clothed himself. The perfectness of the moment cracked and split apart.
‘I will not be long.’ The door clicked shut behind him.
She heard his footsteps fade along the passageway as he walked away from her. Heard the closing of the front door. And in the ensuing silence she knew that he had not changed at all. All those times he had left her alone in this house while he went to Westminster. Avoiding her. Rejecting her. Now she lay in the bed alone with the sheets not yet cooled from their lovemaking. He was gone, just as he had gone before. The ice spread through her veins. She felt her heart fracture apart. She had been a fool. It was true what her grandmama said, that life kept teaching you the same lesson until you learned it. Well, no more. She rose from the bed and saw her clothes strewn across the floor, abandoned with such haste and hope and passion. And all that she had lost seemed to hit her all the harder. Her eyes squeezed shut and she willed herself to strength. She found her shift and slipped it on, then rang the bell for her maid to do what she should have done this morning before she had weakened and yielded her body and her heart to her husband.
It was barely an hour later when Marcus returned to his town house, having arranged at Westminster what he should have arranged when they had first been married. He took the stairs with a lightness in his step. The torture of the past seemed unimportant. He could see things differently now and that was all because of Ellen. She was an amazing woman. He still could not believe he had not seen it right from the start.
At the top of the stairs he halted—two footmen were carrying Ellen’s portmanteau out of her bedchamber. And he knew instantly what she was doing: she was leaving him…again.
He felt his eyes narrow, felt his blood rise. He was a man about to do battle. A man about to fight for his woman. Something of it must have shown on his face for the footmen stopped, offering stuttering explanations.
‘Lady Stanley—‘
‘Leave the portmanteau where it is,’ he said in a quiet voice that belied the storm within.
The footmen did as he bid and scurried away.
He walked into the room.
The maid was holding Ellen’s cloak, ready to fasten around her shoulders. He looked at the woman and she fled with the cloak still in her hands, closing the door behind her.
He saw the marginal widening of Ellen’s eyes and knew she had not thought him to return so soon.
‘Running away again, Ellen?’ he asked and raised one eyebrow as he walked towards her.
She gave a gasp of incredulity. ‘How dare you?’
‘Oh, I dare,’ he said. ‘I may have been fool enough to let you go before, but I will not do so again.’
‘You think you can keep me here against my will?’
‘Against your will? You want me as much as I want you.’
‘You are mistaken.’ She held her head up, faced him like a combatant.
He walked right up to her and stared down into her stormy grey eyes.
‘Are you denying what is between us, Ellen? Denying the passion and desire and love.’
She glanced to the side. ‘There is nothing between us, Marcus. There never was.’ Her voice sounded hard but behind it he heard her pain. He touched his fingers to her chin, moved her face around that he could look in her eyes; touched his lips very gently against hers and felt her momentary yield before she pulled away.
‘Your words may lie but your lips and your eyes cannot.’
He saw the truth in her eyes before she looked away again trying to hide all of her hurt from him.
‘Why will you not let me talk to you, Ellen? Why will you not give me a chance to explain?’
She was silent for so long that he thought she would not answer him. And then she looked up at him, her eyes so stark and honest that it seemed he could see into her very soul.
‘Because I already know, Marcus.’
There was a silence in which there was only the fast thud of his heart and a cold prickling down his spine.
‘I know that you married me only for my money. I know that you were forced to it against your will. And I know that your heart lay with another. You should have had the courage to stand up to your father. It would have saved us both much anguish.’
Every muscle tightened. She knew, and he was going to have to tell her all of it in its full glaring ugliness. ‘Ellen, you do not understand—‘
How To Tempt a Viscount Page 4
